


Hold My Hand

by Kiraly



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 00:44:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16882407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiraly/pseuds/Kiraly
Summary: No one knows what the king and queen get up to at night when the doors are locked. Some of it is...not what one would expect.(Or, Gen and Irene wandering around the rooftops at night, because why not?)





	Hold My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> In the current chaos of Tumblr killing itself, I'm trying to upload some of my ficlets from over there. I don't have a lot of Queen's Thief stuff, but maybe the bits I have will be of interest to someone?
> 
> This was based on a prompt from Minutia_r: Gen/Attolia for "Hold my hand, you're going to be fine."
> 
> (I also...have an idea for a supremely angsty second part of this, with the phrase being said in quite different circumstances, but we'll see if it materializes).

“Hold my hand. You’re going to be fine.”

Attolia drew a deep breath. “Eugenides,” she said, not bothering to open her eyes, “If you’re offering me that hook, I’m turning around right now.”

A sigh, and his left hand slipped into her right, fingers fitting between hers like they were made for it. “Contrary to what you may think,” he murmured, close enough for his breath to tickle her ear, “I don’t  _always_ mean to vex you with hand jokes.”

“Just most of the time, then?” She felt herself relaxing though, calmed by his touch. Enough so that she didn’t resist when he tugged her forward. Her foot moved, froze in the air for just a moment–and then touched down on solid stone. 

Eugenides made a little noise of approval and squeezed her hand. “I have to stay entertained somehow,” he said. “It gets very dull in court, now that I’m sitting on a throne. Long step here.”

Attolia stretched her leg and was rewarded by another solid foothold. “Dull? I suppose running a kingdom does pale in comparison to scrambling over rooftops at midnight. Pity you gave up thieving to become king.” A hint of bitterness crept into her words. She wondered occasionally if she’d really done the right thing by accepting his offer. It  _was_ the right thing for Attolia-the-country, and that had always been her priority, as Attolia-the-queen. Sometimes though, when Attolis slouched on his throne and his thoughts were so clearly elsewhere, Irene-the-woman worried for her husband.

“A pity? Maybe. Most of the country seems to think so.” Eugenides led her forward another few steps, then released her hand. A moment later, she felt his fingers on her cheek. “But I happen to think I gained more than I gave up.” His lips brushed hers, careful and questioning in a way he seldom was with anything else. She returned the kiss with a gentleness that would have surprised her subjects. Eugenides held her close, and with no one to see them except the gods, she allowed it.

“You can open your eyes, by the way,” he said eventually. She hesitated. It wasn’t beyond him to stop for something like this halfway across an exposed roof beam; he’d done it before. And for all that she faced far more difficult situations in the daily running of her kingdom, she couldn’t be easy with narrow ledges and heights that would mean certain death if she fell. She couldn’t skip blithely into danger and trust the gods to catch her.

But she could trust her husband. So Attolia opened her eyes to meet Gen’s. He was smiling. They stood on the roof, on the opposite side from where they’d started.

“Nicely done,” he said, “We’ll make a thief of you yet. Maybe next time you’ll be able to keep your eyes open.”

Maybe next time she’d miss her step, and everyone would wonder why their queen had been on the roof in the first place. Maybe tomorrow she’d wish she had slept more, and envy her husband as he pretended to nap on the throne beside hers. But more than likely she’d be back up here tomorrow night, and the next, on top of the world with the one she loved.

So she only smiled, and took his hand once more. “Maybe I will.”


End file.
